Last Meeting: Saint Louis 59, UMass 50; Feb. 7, 2013
Playing live on CBS Sports Network at Saint Louis' Chaifetz Arena, UMass women's basketball suffered a 59-50 defeat to the Billikens on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013. Jasmine Watson totaled her 16th career double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds, finishing 9-for-11 from the field. Watson added five blocks over 34 minutes on the floor, marking the second consecutive contest the 6-foot-3 center stuffed as many attempts and ninth time over her UMass career.

Rashida Timbilla added eight points, five boards and a pair of steals while Emily Mital notched a career-high seven rebounds. Nola Henry recorded five points and four boards while leading UMass with four assists. Jasmine Harris chipped in six points on a pair of made three-pointers over 16 minutes on the floor.

Sparked by Henry and a stingy defense, UMass (3-20 overall, 1-7 Atlantic 10) raced out to a 10-1 lead with 12:26 to play in the first half as Henry connected on a jumper and her first attempt from behind the arc to pace the attack. Redshirt-junior guard Carolann Cloutier started off the game-opening run with a layup at the 18:28 mark while Watson tallied her first points on a turnaround jumper and redshirt-junior forward Kiara Bomben capped the run by hitting the second half of a set of foul shots.

After the Billikens (10-12, 4-3) rallied back to pull within 10-9 with 8:13 left in the opening half, the Minutewomen answered with a 10-0 run of their own on the strength of a combined 5-for-5 stretch from Timbilla and Watson. Timbilla knocked down back-to-back jumpers at 8:01 and 7:33 to push the lead to 14-9 before Watson added a trio of made baskets to cap the run and extend the advantage to 11 points.

The stout defense early on translated to just 20 points allowed to the Billikens in the first half, with the Minutewomen entering the break ahead, 24-20. UMass held Saint Louis to just 25.8 percent from the floor (8-for-31) while answering with 11 makes in 28 attempts (39.3 percent).

The Billikens found their shooting touch at the start of the second half, eventually earning their first lead of the contest, 27-26 with 17:47 left to play as a result. Saint Louis built its advantage as large as 11 during the frame; however, the Minutewomen responded with an 8-0 run to keep the contest close into the final minute.

Mital converted a layup and Timbilla hit the back end of a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to 52-44 with 2:36 to play. Watson followed with a layup before Harris drained her second three-pointer to pull the Minutewomen within 52-49 at the two-minute mark.

Scouting Saint Louis Women's Basketball
Saint Louis holds an 11-17 overall record and 6-9 mark in Atlantic 10 Conference games entering the final regular season contest of the year for both squads. Second-year leader Lisa Stone, who is 23-36 at Saint Louis but 526-273 overall in her 28th year as a head coach, guides the Billikens.

Erin Nelson paces the squad with 14.3 points per game while Desirae Ball adds 12.3 as the only other Billiken netting double-digits on average. Denisha Womack leads Saint Louis in rebounding with 7.1 pulled down per game to go with 9.7 points. Overall, the Billikens are being outscored this season, 64.5-to-61.4 while narrowly losing the battle of the boards, 39.0-to-38.3.

Saint Louis stumbled in the middle of its schedule, dropping seven consecutive games bridging the end of the non-conference slate and beginning of A-10 games. However, the Billikens are 6-4 in their 10 most recent games, including league wins over George Mason, La Salle, Saint Joseph's, St. Bonaventure and two victories versus Rhode Island.

All Home And Conference Contests Available On A-10 Digital Network
UMass women's basketball will have each of its 13 home games broadcast online through the Atlantic 10 Digital Network. A link will be provided in each game preview to direct fans or other interest parties to the subscription page, where the viewer can purchase the plan he or she believes to be appropriate.

WMUA 91.1 FM To Broadcast Women's Basketball
Each Massachusetts women's basketball contest during the 2013-14 campaign will be broadcast live on WMUA 91.1 FM. Fans can listen in through their FM radio station or catch the game via the online live streaming app, which is free of charge and linked in each game preview. Either Cody Chrusciel or Chris Doherty will be providing play-by-play breakdown for those listening in while John Ryan or Andrew Cyr will serve as the color commentator.

Timbilla Joins Most Successful All-Time UMass Rebounders
With an appearance against St. Bonaventure on Feb. 8, Rashida Timbilla played in her 50th game with the Minutewomen, the minimum required to be eligible for the program's top-20 for rebounding average. Timbilla pulls down 7.8 boards per appearance (430), the fifth-most in UMass history and only 0.1 behind Octavia Thomas (1992-96) for fourth place.

Mital Stopping And Popping Her Way Into The Record Book
In her third year as a Minutewoman Emily Mital has hit 105 career three-pointers for the Maroon and White, the eighth-most in the history of the program. She needs to make three more to pass Kristina Danella (2008-10) for seventh all-time.

Her junior season success earned her the spot on UMass' all-time leaderboard for made three-pointers as she is 49-for-135 (36.3 percent) with one game left to play in the regular season. As a sophomore in 2012-13, Mital hit 48 of her 151 tries from long distance (31.8 percent) after she finished 8-of-39 in the category as a freshman (20.5 percent).

She is also seventh all-time in three-point field goal attempts (324) while her 49 threes made this year puts her 13th in the single-season rankings.

Back-To-Back With 20+Jasmine Harris scored 20 points in back-to-back games against Richmond on Feb. 19 and Rhode Island on Feb. 23 for her first performances with at least 20 points as a Minutewoman.

It marked the first time any Minutewomen have recorded as many points in two straight games since Jasmine Watson had 21 on Nov. 10, 2012, against Kent State before Emily Mital went for 22 at Central Connecticut three days later, a span of 53 contests between the two streaks.

The last time one player recorded back-to-back 20+ point performances was when Watson scored 22 against La Salle on Feb. 26, 2011 before earning 25 in the following game versus Charlotte on March 4, 2011. It was 84 games between one Minutewoman scoring 20 or more in consecutive games.

She Gets BucketsKim Pierre-Louis has provided a consistent shot in and around the paint as a junior in 2013-14, leading her to hold the sixth-highest field goal percentage in the Atlantic 10 with 158 makes in 327 attempts from the floor (48.3 percent). Her percentage makes her one of only six Atlantic 10 women's basketball players to qualify for the top-15 with a mark at or above 48.0 percent.

For her career, Pierre-Louis has never shot less than 44.4 percent for a season and has made 210 of her 442 attempts as a Minutewoman (47.5 percent). She was 20-of-43 as a freshman (46.5 percent) and 32-for-72 over her sophomore campaign (48.8 percent).

International Appeal
Among the 13 Minutewomen on the active roster this season are four international players hailing for three different countries. A pair of them, Kim Pierre-Louis and Rashida Timbilla, hail from the same city in Ottawa, Ontario, while Paula Tarnachowicz originates from Gdynia, Poland, and Kiara Bomben is a native of Canberra, Australia.

The four internationally-born players are tied for the second-most on one season's roster in program history with the 2012-13 and 2004-05 campaigns. The squad has had at least one international student-athlete active on the roster in each of the last 14 seasons and 19 of the previous 20.

UMass women's basketball has had eight Canadian players compete for the program in the history of the squad while Bomben and Tarnachowicz are the players to suit up for the Maroon and White from their respective countries.
The four internationals mark the second-most on a squad among all Atlantic 10 teams behind only Duquesne's six foreign-born players.

Thomas Named To A-10 Legends Class Of 2014
UMass standout Octavia Thomas was one of 13 former Atlantic 10 women's basketball student-athletes named to the conference's Legends Class of 2014. Thomas provided UMass women's basketball with 1,791 points and 903 rebounds during her four-year career as she led the Minutewomen to the 1995 WNIT and 1996 NCAA Tournament. George "Trigger" Burke was an all-America selection in 1956 as he also took in All-East, All-New England, All-Yankee Conference and all-Boston Garden.

She will be honored along with her 12 women's basketball compatriots and the 13 men's basketball inductees during the 2014 Atlantic 10 Championship.